I think the XB1 is lacking a clear focus from a management standpoint. It tries to do too many things, but arguably none is particulalry attractive compared to the competition.

It plays games, yes. But comments from 3rd party developers suggest that there's a 40% deficit compared to the Sony's PS4 in terms of GPU power. It streams videos, runs Skype, records gaming sessions, and integrates cable TV in its interface. All of these features are behind a $60 per year subscription paywall, on top of the $500 upfront asking price. Speaking of which, PS4's lower price of $400 sure makes Microsoft's offering look a lot less attractive.

It was suggested that the inclusion of the Kinect sensor contributed to XB1's higher price. Microsoft needs to offer a compelling reason (ideally in the form of a killer app, something similar to the wildly successful Wii Sports) for people to be willing to shell out that extra $100 over the competition.

I think the Xbox One is a great piece of engineering. Unforturnately, it was mismanaged from pricing all the way to PR (which MS later admits). Hopefully things will be better after the management shakeup.

After looking the slides, beyond being a very powerful game station I believe that the XBox One has the opportunity of winning the competition by acting as a communication an media hub / set top box.

It not only has tons of multimedia processing horsepower, but includes the most advanced video capture device. Sum that to the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft and you have a media center in which the gaming capabilities are only a little part of the big picture!!